Divorce, Italian Style (Divorzio all'italiana)

A leading example of the commedia all'italiana, Pietro Germi's 1961 black comedy Divorce, Italian Style (Divorzio all'italiana) spends its 105 minutes mocking the rigid morality of Sicily. Produced by Lux Film, it was a box-office success and won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.

At its centre is Baron Fefè Cefalù (Marcello Mastroianni), an impoverished Sicilian nobleman who cannot stand his wife and has fallen for his young cousin Angela (Stefania Sandrelli). Divorce is illegal in Italy. Believing that honour killings that follow adultery bring light sentences, Fefè sets out to push his wife toward a lover, to give himself an excuse to get rid of her. His plan runs into many unexpected complications. Daniela Rocca plays the wife and Lando Buzzanca is also in the cast. Sandrelli was only 15 during filming.

Germi wrote the screenplay with Ennio De Concini, Alfredo Giannetti and Agenore Incrocci, adapting Giovanni Arpino's 1960 novel Un delitto d'onore. Carlo Di Palma shot it in black and white. At Cannes in 1962 it was nominated for the Palme d'Or and took the best comedy prize. Mastroianni and Germi received Oscar nominations, and the film won two Golden Globes and joined Italy's list of 100 films to be saved in 2008.